


Frozen Heart

by Dusklight1



Series: 'Gifts' [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Edmund is messed up, Edmund was tortured, Flashbacks, Gen, He was also cursed, Nightmares, Poor Edmund, Post-The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, slightly AU, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusklight1/pseuds/Dusklight1
Summary: Edmund doesn't like to think of his first three months in Narnia, three torturous months that consisted of blood and pain and frostbite. Unfortunately, he may not have a choice, as things start happening to him that force him to acknowledge just what happened in the White Witch's dungeon all those years ago.





	

_Scritch._

_Scritch._

_Scritch._

_" Well hello Prince Edmund. How are you today?"_

_Edmund lifts his weary head to see Maugrim sneering at him from outside of his cell. A voice in the back of his mind is screaming at him to run away, but he can barely twitch in his chains. Before he knows it the wolf is in his cell, biting and clawing, ripping and tearing, and it seems like hours go by before he's left alone again, bleeding and afraid and cold._

_A few hours later, the dwarf comes to his cell and feeds him burned up bread and brackish water, laughing as Edmund's cold numbed hands fumble at the meagre offering. As soon as he's finished eating Edmund is locked back in his chains, his arms so high above his head that his feet barely brush the ground._

_This time, nearly a day passes without interruption, before_ she _comes, with her whip and her wand. When she's finished with him, Edmund's shirt is in tatters, as is back, and bruises and patches of frostbite litter his skin. He's finally warm though, the heat of his blood dripping down his back and his legs the only good thing about this._

_He is so cold, all the time now. Edmund has lost hope of anyone ever coming for him, saving him. He wants to die. Edmund hears the rattle of his cell door and thinks he might just get his wish, with how murderous the Witch looks. She's close enough to touch, if he were unchained, and the tip of her wand pokes into his gut hard enough to break the skin. She smiles coldly before stabbing him, pushing the sharp crystal tip of the wand through his skin and into the muscles above his hip, and it hurtshurtshurts and he screams-_

_•••_

Edmund sits up, gasping for air and clutching at his stomach, phantom pains nearly crippling him. When he finally takes in his surroundings he almost screams again. Jagged spikes of ice jut up from the floor and frost webs the walls and windows, all of it spiraling out from where he lays on his bed.

Lucy is the first one into his room, and she runs to his bedside heedless of the ice and snow. Susan and then Peter come running into his room, and together the three of them comfort him. When he finally calms down, the ice dissapates as if it was never there, and the temperature in his room goes back to normal.

* * *

 A few months later, he freezes the tea in his cup. Its entirely by accident, and no one seems to notice except him. Still, Edmund is terrified. He hasn't been this out of control in years, hell its been so long that he'd honestly forgotten about it, passed off as a dream until recently. Still, there's no denying it. Edmund is still cursed.

The tea incident isn't the only one though. Only a week later he slips while buttering his bread and cuts his hand, badly. The pain of the cut and the red of his blood send him spiralling back into his worst memories before Susan snaps him out of it. Unfortunately, their parents are starting to notice something is wrong with him, and God knows they've noticed something's wrong with the others. Edmund fears it's just a matter of time before they notice just how wrong their children are.

* * *

His first winter back in England is also his worst. An English winter is far colder than a normal Narnian one, and this winter is far colder than a normal English one. 

Edmund shivers constantly, and is eternally on edge. The nightmares get worse, and the flashbacks more frequent, until it all culminates with a vicious cold snap in the living room. Somehow his parents still don't notice, and life seems to continue on as normal, or at least as normal as it gets for the Pevensie children. Still, with Lucy getting sicker, Peter getting angrier, and Susan getting more withdrawn, not to mention Edmund's slew of troubles, he's afraid that their parents are going to find out the truth sooner rather than later, and suspects that the only reason they haven't yet is because of Susan.

* * *

 Their second time in Narnia, when the hag and the wolfman try to return the Witch to life, she calls Edmund her child. She says he is no Son of Adam, but a Son of Charn, and his blood cannot return her. As if consoling him, Jadis tells him not to fear, all he needs to do is shed Peter or Caspian's blood and offer it to her so that she can be freed.

Edmund is horrified and yells denials, and destroys the ritual circle and the ice holding her with a vengeance. Caspian is wholly confused by the ordeal, and watches helplessly as Edmund's siblings comfort him.

* * *

 

When they go back to England the second time, Edmund is afraid for all of them. For all that returning to Narnia helped, leaving it again has left them bereft, and he is honestly terrified that Lucy might die, that they all might. Because their 'Gifts' are eating them all up inside, and he doesn't know if they can survive it.

* * *

 The last time he is in Narnia, he sees Jadis again. They sail past the aptly named Isle of Nightmares and she appears before him, beseeching h to return her to life, reminding him he knows how.

He is unnaccountably greatful when Alsan intervenes, the great albatross in the sky leading them out of the shadows. Still, he shakes and shivers for hours after, helpless against the cold gripping his chest like a vise.

Later, when he and Lucy are set to return home, he watches the dread on Lucy's face as she steps into the wave, and wants to scream. He thinks to himself that Alsan must know what he's doing, that sending Lucy to magicless England is killing her inside. The sadness on the Lion's face seems to confirm his thought, and Edmund finds that he hates him for a moment.

* * *

 After he and Lucy return to England for the last time, his nightmares are as bad as they were just after he'd been rescued from the Witch. Peter isn't there to help, Lucy tries but isn't quite able, and Susan doesn't seem to think anything is wrong. In fact, she denies it. Susan seems to be of the opinion that the best way to move on from Narnia is to forget Narnia.

Of course, when Edmund has a panic attack and freezes half of the garden, including the bench she's sitting on, in the middle of summer, Susan is hard pressed to deny anything. Instead, she does her best to help him, like she used to.

Really, they all try to help each other, as difficult as that may be, because they know that they're the only ones who can.


End file.
